The Stray Guide Affair
by DarkBeta
Summary: AU. UNCLE takes on THRUSH regularly, and the KGB, CIA et al when required. But how well will they do against the GDP?
1. Prologue

_(Once upon a time Susan Foster created a Sentinel sub-universe, in which civilization recognized and relied upon Guides and Sentinels . . . with very different results to the status of each. It is a terrifying universe, but very readable. And i couldn't help wondering . . . how would other characters adapt to that universe? I have Foster-sama's permission to explore the GDP universe, but this is in no wise authentic or recognized as part of it!_

_UNCLE is not mine, The Sentinel is not mine, Susan Foster's GDP Universe is not mine; little in all this shabby orb is mine.)_

The Stray Guide Affair, Prologue, by DarkBeta

Napoleon glimpsed a pale stray skulking in the airport parking lot, and spent nearly an hour trying to herd the dog to safety. By the time he decided it had run off, he'd lost the chance to hook up with Tiffany and her fellow stews at the Park Club.

For once he faced being dateless with equanimity. A week in a jungle prison, and another three days trekking to the coast, followed by a fourteen-hour flight with a three-hour layover in Cascade, made a solitary bed only slightly less attractive than a shared one. If he took a cab past headquarters and dropped off the preliminary report, he'd have a couple days before Waverly's secretary began hounding him for the final report and expenses.

Explaining why UNCLE owed the Indonesian navy a helicopter would be easier after a couple days in bed. Surely.

He had the cab drop him at an all-night drugstore and stepped into a curtained photo booth. A swift translocation and an echoing concrete passage took him to the main desk for his ID badge and obligatory flirtation.

The flirtation was briefer than usual. Napoleon had begun to feel some urgency. Not all of the Thrush rogue scientists were accounted for. He needed to put the report in Waverly's hands as soon as possible, and let Research start tracing them.

In an empty corridor he found himself actually running, and forced himself back to a brisk walk. Seeing an agent run alarmed the secretaries, and they reached for their guns. The last time April Dancer was late for a date, UNCLE almost lost the mailroom guy.

Waverly was in his office, of course. The secretary tried to intercept Napoleon.

"He's in conference . . . !"

Napoleon waved the report at her.

"I'll just drop this in his in-box. They won't notice I was there."

He pulled the door open, and froze. His mouth opened. Inhaling, he tasted the history of the room. The taint of Waverly's special tobacco. (Did the Section Head smoke that blend to confound a sentinel's nose?) The reassuring consistency of Waverly himself. Papers, files, dust. A stranger who stood with military stiffness facing Waverly's desk.

The unconscious urgency made sense now. Napoleon shut the office door behind him. He smiled dangerously at his boss and at the stranger's back.

"It looks like my performance bonus is early this year."


	2. Part 1

_(Nothing's mine . . . but you knew that.)_

The Stray Guide Affair, Part 1, by DarkBeta

_"I have no intention of interfering with your personal choices. However unwise."_

Napoleon kept his hold on the doorknob, not for support but for an anchor. He hadn't been this close to an unbonded guide since his senses came online.

Sentinels without guides faced a short, unpleasant life. Survival instinct told him to grab the pale-haired man. (Three steps. No more than that. Only Waverly was near enough to be a rival, but he'd be slowed by the desk between them, and by his age.) To take him somewhere private and secure. (Several offices nearby were empty. If Napoleon triggered the security measures, UNCLE's technicians would need hours to break in.) To kill anyone who interfered.

You didn't qualify as an UNCLE field agent unless you could, when the situation required it, ignore the desire to survive.

"You aren't due to report until Monday," the Section Head noted.

Napoleon walked over to put the Jakarta report on the corner of Waverly's desk, circling around the guide at more than an arm's reach. The flinch at his approach would have been invisible to any eyes but a sentinel's. Only a sentinel could have tasted despair.

The man was feverish, too hot even for a guide, with the blotchy warmth of hidden bruises. He smelled of vodka and ice and blood. He'd eaten a sandwich from the UNCLE cafeteria, roast beef with mustard, about six hours before. Before that he'd flown in an unpressurized craft. He was worse than afraid, with the resignation of a trapped animal waiting to die.

For the rest, that even non-sentinels would see, he had blue eyes and white-blond hair. He wore brown uniform pants rolled up at the cuffs, a sweat-stained teeshirt (the sweat was his, though the shirt wasn't), and a flight jacket too big for him. He had the balanced, conscious stance of an actor or a martial artist. He was too thin.

He had courage, since he refused to acknowledge the Nemesis behind him. Napoleon pulled a chair over to the corner of Waverly's desk, within the stranger's range of vision but still out of reach, and sat down. The fact that he was now between Waverly and the guide was coincidence. Probably.

"Hello. My name's Napoleon Solo. Pleased to meet you."

"Of course you are. Sentinel."

The guide's hostility was plain. Napoleon smiled, trying to look trustworthy but not ingratiating. After a minute or two the stranger decided that surrendering his name was not an irretrievable precedent.

"Illya Kuryakin."

"You're Russian?" Napoleon asked.

Not a product of GDP training then, brainwashed out of all initiative and terrorized into obedience. He might be a real partner, instead of an appurtenance to be towed about and guarded. Napoleon might have a chance to bond without surrendering his field status.

"That . . . is being decided."

The guide feared sentinels, or bonding, or Napoleon himself. A bright prospect was withheld. Napoleon hated self-denial. So easy to reach out . . . . He held the side of the chair, hoping neither Waverly nor the guide would see his knuckles whiten.

"Mr. Kuryakin is currently persona non grata in his homeland," Waverly put in. "UNCLE, on the other hand, has reason to be very grateful indeed. I've granted him provisional status as an agent with the North American office. Dependent upon the completion of training, of course."

Oh. No. Not the island. Training in warfare, espionage, and assassination. Weeks of trials designed to fold, spindle and mutilate. Convincing a would-be agent that he was going to die so often that he stopped caring. A guide would endure the fear and rage of his fellow students as well as himself.

Napoleon put together "exile" and "provisional status" and "guide", and came to an unpleasant conclusion.

"The GDP has no right of entry or seizure on UNCLE's property, here or on the island."

"Correct," Waverly agreed. "A right upon which we remain adamant."

"You're trying to keep Kuryakin out of their grip. But agent's training . . . that's for volunteers. You can't be forced to go through it unless you believe in the result."

"Who has said I don't?" the guide asked.

Waverly brought his pipe out of the desk and began to tamp tobacco in the bowl. Smoking in a sentinel's presence was one way to indicate extreme displeasure.

"It won't work! He needs to go on assignment to keep his status. As soon as he steps out the door they can grab him."

"It would be a good test of our training to resist coercion," Waverly mused.

Kuryakin almost smiled. Napoleon stared at him. A match flared, and Waverly applied it to his pipe.

"Sir, get him out. England, Switzerland . . . some place where guides have a reasonable legal standing."

"You underestimate the rancor surrounding his departure. The notoriety of the GDP's behavior in the Americas was, I believe, the deciding factor in the agreement of his superiors to my offer of residence."

The first wisp of smoke emerged from his tobacco. Waverly contemplated it fondly.

"Does UNCLE employ any other unbonded sentinels in this sector?"

"You would be aware of them, if we did."

Napoleon leaned back in his chair, though relaxation was the opposite of what he felt. The guide's despair was explained. Death at home or slavery abroad; a delightful choice.

"I consent," Kuryakin whispered. "Is that what you need to hear? One man cannot do me as much harm as the apparatus of the state. I consent."

"I don't."

That surprised Kuryakin. He looked straight at Napoleon, for the first time. The sentinel looked back, allowing himself that much luxury. He wondered what his mixture of regret and pity and resentment felt like to a guide.

"Enough," the section chief said. "Mr. Kuryakin, I need to speak privately with my agent. Please wait in the adjoining room."

"Of course, sir."

He circled about the sentinel in leaving, as Napoleon had circled him before. Napoleon closed his eyes. Waverly's office was well soundproofed. The closing door cut off the sound of the guide's breath and heartbeat. His scent hung in the air though, and a fading trace of his body's warmth.

The pipestem clicked as Waverly set it down.

"I have no intention of interfering with your personal choices. However unwise. Nonetheless, Mr. Kuryakin will accompany you to your apartment, and remain in your company for the next ten hours."

He raised a hand to stop Napoleon's protest.

"Mr. Kuryakin's treatment prior to UNCLE's extraction of him was not gentle. That portion of the past six hours not given to debriefing, he spent in the medical wing. The treatment he received means that he will be unable to bond for --" Waverly glanced at his watch. "-- some twelve hours. I am told that the attempt would be frustrating, on the sentinel's part, and painful, on the guide's."

Napoleon coughed as fumes rose from the unattended pipe. The section chief gave him a stern look.

"As you point out, Mr. Kuryakin is in grave danger if he is identified as a guide outside these premises. Without formal proceedings though, the GDP has no right to remove a guide in the presence and control of a sentinel such as yourself."

Napoleon started coughing again, but he nodded. The GDP might not hold to the letter of its legal constraints, but he could dissuade informants or guards from interfering.

"You will return Mr. Kuryakin here at nine tomorrow. Meanwhile I will research alternative sanctuaries."

"Yes, sir."

Napoleon stood up, and found that air was gone. Soot was in his mouth and lungs. He clutched his throat and collapsed.

He would have laughed if he'd had breath. Ridiculous. After all the Thrush attempts, to die of smoke. And in Waverly's office, in the middle of the New York headquarters -- barring the White House, the most intensely guarded square footage in the Americas. Did this count as friendly fire?

He rolled his head far enough to watch the door the guide had gone out of. Illya Kuryakin. Not that he expected help. Even if Kuryakin somehow felt his distress, in that spooky way guides did, what could a sentinel's death be to him but a reprieve? Waverly said there was a debt, and the old man paid his debts. He'd make sure the guide was safe.

Napoleon could have helped. Could have guarded him.

Darkness.

Illya.


	3. Part 2

The Stray Guide Affair, Part 2, by DarkBeta

_"Have him shot. It is kinder."_

Illya's fate was to be decided in his absence, behind his back. He was not surprised.

The conference room adjoining Mr. Waverly's office was empty, and uninteresting. Nothing to read, and nothing to see. When he leaned back in one of the chairs, it nearly deposited him on the floor. Sleeping was not possible, unless he lay on the table. Or the floor. Either would be more comfortable than a wooden bunk in the camp. The floor was even carpeted.

The way American sentinels treated their guides, he should become accustomed to the floor. But not yet.

He doubted he would be starved, or frozen. Even dogs and cats were fat in the Americas. Their buildings weren't warm enough, but the winter outside scarcely counted as winter at all. As for the rest, he had seen men without freedom or respect go on living. What mattered more than survival?

The information he sent to UNCLE did. He had known its value, and its cost. Freedom first, and then his life.

He had not expected the team that brought him out of the camp.

Finding out that Mr. Waverly's pet sentinel was unbonded relieved him, in a way. It explained why UNCLE came after him. He had feared interrogation for information he did not have.

He heard whispers. He followed the sound to a telephone with one glinting light. When he turned the volume up he heard voices he knew. He heard Mr. Waverly lie.

". . . he will be unable to bond for some twelve hours, by my estimate. The attempt would be frustrating, on the sentinel's part, and painful, on the guide's."

Was the section chief foolish enough to lie to a sentinel? But Solo did not protest. The agent trusted his superior enough not to listen for falsehoods. Mr. Waverly had to know that, and rely on it. How very familiar.

The lie itself was stupid. When the sentinel's need made him force the bond, he'd know his superior had deceived him. How could a stupid man oversee an organization as efficient as UNCLE? Did he expect the sentinel to forgive him, in post-bonding euphoria?

Perhaps he only meant to pass by Solo's scruples. What was the American saying? 'Forgiveness is easier than permission.' He'd gotten the sentinel's cooperation.

"Yes, sir."

Illya heard a thud, like a chair pushed carelessly against the wall. Mr. Waverly spoke louder, in irritation or alarm.

"Mr. Solo, surely this is overdramatic."

Curiousity was one failing Illya had not overcome. The silence couldn't give him the answers he needed. Carefully he opened his shields.

Solo was a hearth. A country-house oven, with the bed above it. Warmth a man could lean against. Regret and pain and coals dimming in blizzard wind. A thin mad thread of amusement, as if the man's death was a kind of joke.

Illya tried the door back into Waverly's office. A lock wouldn't have stopped him -- he had found the metal shank of a pen to use as a pick -- but to his surprise it opened.

The sentinel was on the floor. He seemed to stare at Illya as the guide came in, but his eyes were blank. A pipe fumed on the section chief's desk.

"Put that out!" Illya commanded. "Is there the fan? The air exchange?"

"Yes."

"On!"

His English was escaping. He needed practice. Much more practice. On his knees (hadn't he known the sentinel would put him here?) he checked the pulse. Good. The heart had beats.

The trace irritant was not all the air. The sentinel needed reminding. Illya blew into his face, knowing he would be doing the same if he meant to initiate bonding. The nostrils widened, and then the sentinel gasped. And moved. He was not restrained. Illya found himself pinned on the floor.

Solo was heavier and longer-limbed than his prisoner, and not so soft as he looked. Illya thought he could break free, but he or the sentinel would suffer broken bones from it.

What would fighting gain him? Let the smoking man see what he played with. Waverly might command his agent, but no-one commanded the sentinel.

Except the guide. Illya felt the lance of old guilt. He turned his head, hiding from Waverly's stare. He hated this. Hated the exposure, feared what the sentinel would do, loathed himself for being afraid.

"Get it over with."

He expected a hoarse growl. Certainly no words more elaborate than, 'Mine!' The sentinel rolled away. He rose to his feet, straightened his suit, brushed a lock of hair back from his forehead.

"You're a brave Russian, giving orders to an UNCLE director in his own office," he said, and added with scrupulous courtesy, "Thank you for your assistance."

His breathing was still fast, but he looked as calm as a magazine photograph. He reached a hand down to Illya, who ignored it and rolled to his feet.

"If you are dissatisfied with your sentinel, have him shot. It is kinder," Illya told Waverly.

Solo put an arm across his shoulders, that was too heavy to be brotherly.

"I guess our Russian is still feeling under the weather. He'll be fine, with some rest. We'll see you tomorrow."

He swept Illya out the door, and added, "As long as we're trying to be kind, let me know the next time you plan to mouth off at the boss, and I'll shoot you."

"What weather? How is it over me, when we're inside?"

Long training suppressed Waverly's smile as he watched them go. His secretary looked about the open door.

"Mr. Waverly, I'm so sorry. Mr. Solo just barged in . . . ."

"I think that went rather well," Mr. Waverly told her, and tamped more tobacco into his pipe.


End file.
